A United States court of appeals has ruled that a policy under President Donald Trump to expel transgender troops from the military was a violation of the Constitution.
But Monday’s decision was a split one among the three-judge panel of the US appeals court for the District of Columbia.
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One judge, Robert Wilkins, an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama, upheld a lower court ruling rejecting the Trump administration’s policy as it pertains to already enlisted service members.
A second judge – Judith Rogers, who was picked by former Democratic President Bill Clinton – agreed with his opinion, but only in part. She felt it should extend to those who seek to enlist, too.
And the third judge, Trump pick Justin Walker, issued a dissent questioning the court’s ability to second-guess US military policy.
Writing for the fractured majority, Wilkins wrote that Trump’s policy violates the “constitutional right to equal protection of the law”.
Origins of Trump’s policy
The case focused on one of the earliest actions Trump took during his second term in office. On January 27, 2025, a week after his second inauguration, Trump issued an executive order called “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness”.
In it, he denounced the US armed forces as having been infiltrated with “radical gender ideology”. He proceeded to describe transgender people as unfit for service for embracing a “false ‘gender identity’”.
“A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member,” Trump wrote.
The executive order became the basis for a 13-page Pentagon memorandum, issued in February 2025 under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
It declared that any service member who has “symptoms” of gender dysphoria, or who has used hormone therapy or surgery to affirm their gender, would be “disqualified from military service”.
In Monday’s ruling, Wilkins described the policy as blatantly discriminatory. The policy, he wrote, “appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender”.
“To add insult, the President labeled transgender persons as dishonorable, undisciplined, arrogant, selfish liars,” Wilkins added, pointing to the executive order.
He pointed out that the transgender plaintiffs in the case had a combined 130 years of military service and had earned more than 80 commendations for their work.
In the face of such evidence, Wilkins said the Trump administration had “forfeited any argument” that “retaining these service members will harm national security”.
A split on the appeals court
But Wilkins stopped short of fully upholding a lower court ruling against the policy.
Previously, Judge Ana Reyes had issued a temporary injunction against Trump’s executive order, finding that the discrimination against transgender troops was unconstitutional.
Wilkins agreed with Reyes that the Trump administration could not dismiss those already in the military’s employ. But, he added, the harm was less for those seeking to enlist.
Monday’s ruling, therefore, strikes down the part of Reyes’s injunction that would have barred the Trump administration from banning transgender people from the enlistment process.
Rogers, the Clinton appointee, disagreed with that distinction. She pointed to testimony indicating that excluding transgender recruits from joining the military would deprive “our force of qualified personnel who have proven their ability to serve”.
Meanwhile, the dissent from the Trump appointee, Walker, hinged on his argument that the court had violated the separation of powers in the US government.
Courts, he argued, should not be able to rule on the composition of the military.
“We have neither the expertise nor the authority to decide whether the military can exclude the plaintiffs from its ranks,” Walker wrote. “The Constitution assigns that authority to Congress and the Commander in Chief.”
Reaction to the decision
The split decision is unlikely to have an immediate effect on US military policy.
The appeals court has stayed the preliminary injunction from Reyes, as the legal fight continues, and last year, the US Supreme Court also halted an injunction against Trump’s anti-transgender policy, in the case United States v Shilling.
In a short, four-word social media post, Hegseth signalled that the Pentagon would appeal Monday’s decision.
“See you at SCOTUS,” he wrote, using the acronym for Supreme Court of the United States.
But Democrats and LGBTQ+ advocates hailed the ruling as a victory against prejudice and discrimination in the Trump administration.
“No one who is qualified and answers the call to serve should be denied that opportunity because of who they are,” US Representative John Larson of Connecticut wrote in a statement.
“Trump’s trans military ban is discrimination — plain and simple. We’ll keep fighting these attacks on our troops and all transgender Americans.”
